Onglets

24.4.07

And you can bet they were all good churchgoin' boys...

Sorry.Pissy mood as bits o' The Crappier Side of Teaching/Students begin to surface (you KNOW there is some meaty reading coming on a certain curmudgeony teaching blog), as per usual, with the approach of finals, which really just serves as seasoning in my general bleakness about our country and society in view of a certain warmongering commander-in-chief, recent events at VT and now this. Whether it turns out to be a hate crime or not (duh - altho does that make me just as prejudiced as the people who committed the attack? the fact that I am convinced in my gut that it was exactly what it seems to be?) it just adds to the wonder that is life in the US nowadays, and the particular euphoria we (compassionate, thinking) people on the Plains get to enjoy.

Wisdoms, or not

Walter: Oh, don't be ridiculous. You were abducted; of course you need crêpes.

--Fringe, 2:7 "Of Human Action"

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.

Don't go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.

Don't go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill

where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.

Don't go back to sleep.

--Rumi, from Unseen Rain, (Trans. Coleman Barks)

Things just happen. What the hell.

--the philosopher Didactylos, Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

Eames: I tried Proust in college. I gave up after the first million pages.

Goren: It picks up after the second million pages.

--Law & Order: Criminal Intent, 10:4 "The Last Street in Manhattan"

Let food be thy medicine.

--Hippocrates

...There happens to be a lot about me that you don't know, Mr. Smarty Man.

--American Beauty

"...It makes me feel dangerous, like a spy, or a French person."

--Cougar Town

One of the oldest human needs is having someone to wonder where you are when you don't come home at night.

--Margaret Mead

Pourquoi tu m'appelles 'beauté' comme si ça se voyait pas?

--Camille, Janine II

I had such fuckin' hopes...

--McNulty, The Wire

I wish to say what I think and feel today, with the proviso that tomorrow perhaps I shall contradict it all.

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Don't taunt the fear demon.

--Rupert Giles, Buffy, "Fear Itself"

The world is full of this kind of dumb smart-alec who doesn't understand anything.

--Richard Feynman

When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work. I told her I worked at the college -- that my job was to teach people how to draw. She stared at me, incredulous, and said, "You mean they forget?"

--Howard Ikemoto

It's all fun and games til someone loses their row count.

--Anon. knitter

About suffering they were never wrong,

The old Masters: how well they understood

Its human position: how it takes place

While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along...

--W. H. Auden, Musée des Beaux Arts

I want some American food, dammit! I want French fries!

--Breaking Away

Another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.

--Margaret Atwood, Cat's Eye

I did not achieve this position in life by having some snot-nose punk leave my cheese out in the wind.

I look around at this world you're so eager to be a part of, and all I see's six billion lunatics looking for the fastest ride out. Who's not crazy? Look around - everyone's drinkin', smokin', shootin' up, shootin' each other or just plain screwing their brains out because they don't want 'em anymore. I'm crazy? Honey, I'm the original one-eyed chicklet in the kingdom of the blind 'cause at least I admit the world makes me nuts.